It's all coming back to me
by explicitlyboyblue
Summary: It was strange. These dreams that would tell him of a once beautiful place, shook Eren to the core as they turned into nightmares. There was only one silver lining though, and it took the form of a brooding short man. A heavily implied reincarnation story. Most likely an introductory segment to a longer piece of work.


Ever since he was a young child, Eren Jaeger could tell you that he's always been in these dreams. These visions, that tell him of a different place in a different time.

A faraway place, almost like a fairy tale, where the sun used to shine so brightly that it felt like an eternal blissful summer. Where the snow lay so thick in the winter, it emulated the pure color of clouds in their truest form. Where flowers bloomed so vastly that acres of land were just bright meadows of pure colors. Although largely vast-scaled walls enclosed this magical place from the world, it was all still so beautiful.

That is, until this faraway place took a turn down the wrong lane, spiraling into a complete nightmare.

Eren never liked these dreams. These once beautiful landscapes of joy turned night terrors from the deepest recesses of the wicked haunted the boy at an alarming frequency. Countless times did he have to seek the comfort of his parents, having to scrabble across their bed in tears, hoping that their sweet and gentle words would comfort him into a fitful sleep.

He would tell his parents of these terrible dreams, where everything used to be so wonderful until great monsters of grand sizes would seize the land, laying waste to all human life in their wake, destroying the grand walls and destroying his once-beautiful dreamscape. His small frame wracked with sobs out of sheer fright as he recounted such visions.

There would be nothing to help Eren as the numbers of these dreams grew. Security blankets of all different sorts were given to him, to each of no avail. Talking it out with his parents did only some and trying to draw out his scared frustrations could only do so much. His home, especially his room, would be filled with several different toys and trinkets, and haunting images drawn by this frightened young boy lay scattered on nearly every inch of the floors.

As he grew, Eren himself grew in his dreams. As Eren progressed through life, so did his dream self. At one point, he started convincing himself that these dreams weren't so bad. None of it was real. It couldn't have ever happened to him, even though he felt like he's physically gone through each and every one of these events.

It all felt so real though.

Parts of his dream would include his own parents, his best friend Armin, and his sister Mikasa. Since so many familiar faces were in his dreams, sometimes Eren would forget about distinguishing his dreams from reality.

But as he grew older, he complained less and less of these dreams, eventually not talking about them at all anymore, which convinced his parents that the terrors are overwith. But no.

Eren would eventually grow to have sleepless nights at such a young age. But sometimes, the dreams weren't so bad.

Every so often, he would see his current self, running through alleyways, bounding up cobblestone steps out to the main road to see a procession.

And not just any procession.

He would see stout and strong figures atop horses, cloaked in a royal forest evergreen. Processing through the roads, these heroes (or what Eren assumed) would trot down these stone paths, leaving a sense of victory in their wake, according to the young boy.  
Eren would look to these men and women as the silver lining to all of these nightmares. To him, they were the saviors he needed. The heroes he has been waiting for. And as the rest of these troops passed by, there was always one person that struck him with a sense of pride for their cause.

Even though these dreams can be so vivid to Eren, this one particular person was just blurred out. Something tells him that he already knows what the man looks like though, despite the blur every time he dreams of these gear-clad men and women.

Getting older by the years, Eren then found his dream self to actually interact with this infamous blur in his dreams. The more he dreamt, the more he saw his hero. Eren dreams of himself standing next to him, sitting on a couch next to him, sitting at the same table to eat even. These dreams where he interacts with this man grew in numbers, to the point where Eren would sometimes actually get excited to go to sleep. Anything to get any amount of time with this strange, yet familiar man.

When he doodles his dreams out to vent, a good number of the pages are dedicated to just that one person. That stony, strong figure. A brooding mix between anger and sadness upon his face. A short stature. Eren could see him clearly whenever he closed his eyes, but at the same time, this man is forever an enigma.

The doodles became more detailed as Eren grew older. Honing his artistic skills at an early age, he drew and drew and drew this one person over and over, never getting tired of sketching the same face again and again. At one point in Eren's dreams did he finally catch the name of his heroic stranger and the boy knew him to simply be Levi. Lance Corporal Levi to be exact, and his face was strewn all over papers that lay across the floor.

It became a change of pace for Eren, the nightmarish figures of these giants he knew to be "titans" to a calm and solemn number of portraits of this Levi. It was scary almost; Eren grew to know this man, almost intimately, as some years passed and at some time in his teen years, Eren grew to be enamored by this man from his dreams.

It was strange, but Eren just... Flowed right into this pace, falling in love with a man whom he has never met before. A man that literally stemmed from his former childhood night terrors. But a man that became some sort of beacon of hope in the darkness and despair from these haunting visions. He didn't really need to tell anyone. He didn't feel the need to and he probably knew that his family and best friend noticed this transition. It was strange, yes, but it kept Eren in check. He was happier than he was years ago. Dreadful sobs didn't come from his room every night like it used to and no more screaming awake from the pure shock of these dreams.

So, Eren just grew to admire no one but this Levi that frequently appeared in his dreams.

It wasn't so strange until he ran into someone while on his way into a borrowed art studio.

It was weird.

It was uncanny.

It was strange.

It was almost frightening, how this someone seemed to have bloomed to life right out of Eren's dreams.

This person, this man, that Eren runs into frequently holds an exact resemblance to his dream's hero.

The grey eyes, the small pointed nose, the dark cropped hair, the short stature, everything was exactly how Eren imagined and dreamt. They even acted the same, with the exact same brooding demeanor.

Eren thought nothing of it at first, but the more he ran into this man on the way to the studio, the more Eren convinced himself that the man must have come from his dreams somehow.

He was afraid of going up to the man, thinking to himself that it'd be very strange if a fifteen year old boy just decided to go up to some potential stranger and act like they were intimate lovers.

Oh but the more he saw this man, the more Eren just wanted to get up and confront him about it.

It drove the young boy mad, and just seeing this man almost everyday started to push him off the deep end.

Just one day, Eren finally summoned up the courage to look him straight in the eye and asks, "L-Levi?" He stops the man as he was entering the studio.

The man in question turns to Eren, a small yet knowing smirk on his face, "Brat, you know who you're talking to?"

Jumping at the response, Eren's face breaks out into a smile and simply says,

"It's all coming back to me."


End file.
